Last week, we told you about a 7,500-square-mile raft of pumice discovered floating in the Pacific Ocean, but more recent observations by NASA reveal that chunks of the volcanic rock have since spread over an area of 100,000 square miles. So people are starting to wonder: What will become of the pumice?

Australian Naval officer Tim Oscar called the massive chunk of volcanic rock pictured up top…
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Wired's resident geoscience expert, Erik Klemetti, explains:

This pumice will likely stay afloat for months if not longer and eventually make landfall wherever the currents dictate – potentially as far off as South America. Pumice rafts are not particularly uncommon (see map below), especially in areas of abundant submarine volcanism like the southwestern Pacific Ocean, and they can be fascinating on levels even beyond the volcanology and petrology of the eruption itself. The pumice rafts are like islands that move around the oceans (without the problems of messing with the Orchid station), so you might expect that oceanic organisms will take advantage of their newly created pieces of real estate.